Daily archives: April 06, 2015

The al-Badr leader to die for Sohagpur massacre as apex court upholds death sentenceWith his review petition rejected by the Supreme Court, former al-Badr vigilante Mohammad Kamaruzzaman can only seek presidential clemency for his war crimes as a last resort to escape the noose.

Family members met him at the Dhaka Central Jail yesterday evening after the Appellate Division upheld the Jamaat leader’s death penalty for killing 144 people at Sohagpur village in Sherpur during the 1971 Liberation War.

Informed by the jail authorities, 16 members of his family went to the jail at 6:25pm and stayed until 7:45pm.

BNP chief Khaleda Zia violated her party’s blockade yesterday for a second consecutive day. She went to offer fatiha at her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko’s grave. The day before, Khaleda had surrendered to court and got her bail reinstated. She has been exempted from appearing in person.

The momentum to the city polls in Dhaka and Chittagong is set to shift to a higher gear from today, as the candidates will finally get the official nod for launching their campaigns to woo voters.

SM Asaduzzaman, the Election Commission’s director for public relations, told journalists yesterday that according to the election rules, the candidates will be allowed to canvass in their respective constituencies until April 26, but would have to stop all campaigning 32 hours before voters head to cast ballots on April 28.

Nineteen directives given a year ago by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) have lain dormant for the 14 months since they were issued.

The prime minister issued the directives on February 6, 2014, in her capacity as minister for the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry during her first visit to her office at the ministry last year.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia visited the grave of her son Arafat Rahman Koko at Dhaka’s Banani Graveyard yesterday, for the first time since he was buried there in January.

After securing bail from corruption charges and returning home from her office in Gulshan, where she had been holed up since January 3, the three-time former premier visited Koko’s grave with her family members and party colleagues.

As a leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha – Jamaat’s then student wing, Mujaheed in 1971 had led a ‘death squad’ named al-Badr that acted as an auxiliary force of the Pakistani occupation forcesThe Appellate Division may start today the hearings on appeals of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury filed challenging the death penalty handed down by the war crimes tribunal.

A Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal yesterday awarded death penalty to a man and life term to four other people for killing sand trader Kabir Hossain in Narayangaj on August 1, 2011.

The death sentence was given to Hasnat while four others – Raju, Rahima Begum, Saju, and Habibullah Habu – received lifetime imprisonment. The court also fined Tk10,000 each, in default, to suffer one more year in prison.

As Abdul Awal Mintoo – BNP’s first choice for the Dhaka north city polls – is now officially out of the mayoral race, the party is desperately looking to finalise the next best option.

As of now, there are two avenues open for BNP. First is Mintoo’s son Tabith M Awal, who was brought in at the eleventh hour as a backup option for his father. Second is Mahi B Chowdhury, son of former president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury and joint secretary general of Bikalpadhara Bangladesh.

A total of 90 million Smart NID (national identification) cards will be delivered to the country’s citizens under the Identification system for Enhanced Access to services (IDEA) Project.

The World Bank is supporting the government in strengthening the NID system through the $195 million IDEA project to establish a secure and reliable NID system in Bangladesh for efficient, inclusive and transparent service delivery, said a World Bank media release yesterday.

The ruling Awami League has still not finalised the list of single candidates for each of the wards in the two city corporations in Dhaka for the upcoming polls.

Several ward-level leaders have claimed to have sent single-candidate recommendations from their respective areas to the party’s central high command. But central leaders said the list of lone candidates to get official party backing was not final as of last evening.

Awami League-backed mayoral candidate in Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) election AJM Nasir Uddin chose not to address two meetings yesterday in order to avoid the risk of violating electoral code of conduct.

He was supposed to deliver speeches at the view-exchange meetings organised by Young Engineers Forum and Sitkaunda Samity at Engineers Institute and the nearby Ladies Club in the city respectively, but left both the venues without doing so.

Gonojagoron Moncho organised a sit-in program in the capital’s Shahbagh yesterday, demanding the quick implementation of the death penalty that was handed over to war criminal Muhammad Kamaruzzaman in May, 2013.

Moncho spokesperson Imran H Sarker said: “We will stay at Shahbagh untill Kamaruzzaman’s execution as there is no bar to execute him now.” “We demand its implementation soon,” he added.

Meanwhile, welcoming the Supreme Court verdict, activists of Gonojagoron Moncho brought out a joyous rally in Shahbagh in the afternoon.

A team of Russian phytosanitary specialists is due in Dhaka today to make recommendations to local potato exporters about how to meet international food safety requirements.

Anwar Faruque, additional secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, told the Dhaka Tribune that the team of four experts from Russia’s quarantine service will visit potato fields in Rangpur or Munshiganj, a food laboratory in Gazipur, and Chittagong’s port facilities during their four-day visit.

Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) has inaugurated their Real-time Online Billing service, through which customers will receive instant confirmation after paying their bills.

Partnering with the National Bank Limited (NBL), Dhaka Wasa inaugurated the service yesterday at Wasa Bhaban in Kawran Bazar, Dhaka, with its Managing Director Taqsem A Khan and NBL Managing Director Shamsul Huda Khan in attendance.

The government has taken a decision to strengthen security of land offices all over the country by employing security guards for the 7,000 land offices in the country.

The decision came yesterday in an inter-ministerial meeting held at the land ministry. Land Minister Shamshur Rahman Sharif presided over the meeting.

A land ministry official who attended the meeting said: “Ansar and VDP members will be providing security until the permanent security guards are recruited. The ministry will bear the interim cost of deploying the Ansar-VDP.”

At least one person died and another injured in a clash
between law enforcers and Shibir men in Noakhali’s Maijdi area yesterday.

The deceased was identified as Omar Faruk, 23, son of Nurul Amin of Kadir Hanif union of the Sadar upazila.

According to police sources, some activists of Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, brought out a flash procession and tried to vandalise vehicles upon hearing the verdict against Jamaat leader Kamaruzzaman.